Day Three

By 9:30 am we were on the bus and beginning a tour with our guide, whose parents had both been raised Amish. We drove by many Amish homes as he described the Amish way of life.  

Then we stopped at his mother's quilt shop. The prices seemed reasonable and the Brethren shopping extravaganza began.

We spent so much time there that we did not get to go to the candle shop on the itinerary. Instead we stopped at a roadside store that is owned and operated by an Amish family.  We drank homemade root beer, ate soft pretzels and purchased pickled beets and whoopie pies for later consumption.

Our next stop was the Hess homestead, now owned by a young Amish couple.  

After a delightful lunch served to us in the basement of the home, we went for a peek inside the Amish school across the street.  We sat in the desks while Dot's sister-in-law described the Amish education system.

The men took turns using the boy's bathroom.

Then a tour of the stable to see horses, cows and the German shepherd puppies.

After our thank yours and good-byes had been spoken, we headed to Ephrata for a tour of the cloister.  

We liked the acoustics in this building and so we sang Spirit of the Living God for our guide.

After our guide finished describing the history and life of Ephrata, we went off in different directions with our few remaining minutes.  I headed down to the cemetery and found the grave of Conrad Beisel.

Back to Bird-in-Hand for a few minutes of rest and then dinner at the smorgasbord.  I had ham balls, mashed potatoes with gravy, zucchini casserole, beets and pie....good Pennsylvania cuisine. Then off to Elizabethtown to visit the Young Center at Elizabethtown College. Jeff Bach was waiting for us.  We sat in a room that reflected the architecture of early Brethren meetinghouses. Jeff wowed the group with his knowledge of our history.  I learned so many new things from the time we spent with him.  There was talk on the way home of bringing Jeff to LVCoB for a Brethren Heritage weekend.

At the end of our evening in Elizabethtown we walked outside to see the loveliness of the college campus....and to capture fireflies!

The late night, for those of us staying at the Village Inn, was filled with cheese, whoopie pies, beets, chocolate covered popcorn, laughter, visioning and toasting the good day and the people who made it happen.  As Doug Bro often says to me, "Have I told you just how much I love this church?"